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The Foundation Learning Department took a group of ESOL (English as a Second Language) students for a morning of beach-cleaning as part of their Community Week activities. The group of twenty-six students and four staff spent over three hours painstakingly combing a section of Tankerton Bay beach and collected a total of 36.5kg of rubbish.
The pick was co-ordinated by Tom Hawkins from Canterbury City Council’s Foreshore Services Team. The students were given bags and pickers to use and were told what they should be looking out for when collecting the waste.
Most of the rubbish collected was small plastic pieces such as straws, cotton bud sticks and bottle caps.
The students learned how the plastic on the beach becomes ground down over time and then enters the food chain after being eaten by fish and sea birds.
"It was a great experience for the students," said Foundation Learning Programme Director, Gary Ashman.
"They fully threw themselves into the task and were proud of what they collected. We were all delighted when on several occasions through the morning, local people came up to thank us. It really highlighted to the students how much the local community valued what we were doing."
Find out more about our Foundation Learning and ESOL pathways here.